First: thanks you guys for your kind words!  I'll be sure to keep those suggestions in mind and check out that other forum too. We'll see what I can do and/or come up with. Even so... I did promise a top 10 initially. Still no promises but...

PART II => 3 more tips!

#4 => Never underestimate the Shader Mixer pane!

True story: I'm a vivid Redditor and I also enjoy the (unofficial!) Daz3d subreddit, it's generally speaking a really fun and relaxed place. Except for those moments when it isn't of course (but that's not something only happening in this one channel; it's a sporadic "Reddit community flaw"). People were talking about shaders and Iray presets when I commented on the availability of the Shader Mixer pane shown above, which was quickly met with downvotes as well as comments that I was basically being stupid to even mention this because (I quote): "You can only use that for RSL!", quickly followed by more comments backing up this display of stupidity stating things as: "You can easily see for yourself: just use the File menu to open one of those .duf files, cannot be done!".

I just shrugged behind my screen, unsubbed from the post and moved on. Arguing ignorance is a waste of time (this happened several years ago btw, and I can't help but grin whenever I think back).

So here we're back with Sukai 8, now wearing a pretty cool catsuit. On the left side of my screen you'll notice the Surfaces pane telling us clearly on top that the so called "Iray Uber (MDL)" shader is being used (see my green highlight?).

Now, as most of us hopefully know the Surfaces pane itself provides a lot of customization options. You can tweak just about anything in here.

But what if... What if you want to change the very nature of the shader you're working with? You know: to apply some very specific customizations yourself. From adding some birthmarks to a skin to... I dunno... make things look a bit "off" (sunburn anyone?).

For that... we can use the Shader Mixer pane. Check the Windows menu: "Windows => Panes => Shader Mixer".  Now, sure: by default you'll be met with the "2 brick" Daz3d shader which defines the basic material for RSL. And yes: if you try to load a saved preset then only .dbm files are supported.

So instead:  Select the surface / figure which you want to edit, and pay attention to the shader name shown in the Surfaces pane. Open the Shader Mixer and then use: File => Import from scene. Next... well, just edit to your hearts desire.  Don't be fooled by the (limited) previews. Instead: be sure to save your work and apply where needed.

Now, an important disclaimer is in effect here: please be advised that you're probably (much) better off sticking with the Surfaces pane to apply / "mix" and customize different shaders by using all of the provided controls. Editing the very bricks and their relationship(s) themselves is not easy! 

And yet... once again it's one of those (seriously) advanced features that not too many people seem to use (or be aware of?) and ... still available fully free of charge?

You can use the Shader Mixer to create (or customize) shaders for RSL / 3Delight, Filament and (as shown above): Iray (MDL).

#5 => Consider using multiple Daz3d & Poser format libraries

(in case you're wondering about the blurring above: one mention of "another marketplace" is more than enough)

If you're using market places other than Daz3d then you should do yourself a favor and add at least one more Daz library to your setup. When I first downloaded an archive (I believe that was from ShareCG) then I dumped all of that in my "My Daz Library", and sure: that worked. But ... why would you include "static" contents (which you can always download again) next to your own projects and presets which you'll want to back up at times? All this does is increase the size of your backups, and for what?

Now, then you may be tempted to just add all this to your official Daz3d library, and why not? Well... maybe this won't happen often: but what if you want to remove something at a later time? You can easily uninstall Daz packages, but as soon as you want to remove an archive... you'll have to do some digging. And having to dig through, say, 50 subfolders is a lot more tricky than 12 or 20.

Trust me: it's a lot easier than you may think.  Press F2 to enter your settings, then open the 'Content' pane. Click on the bottom: "Content Directory Manager".

Here's the "secret": a Daz (or Poser) -formatted library is merely a folder on your harddrive which follows a specific standard. You can recognize "Daz contents" by specific sub-folders such as "Data", "Props" or "People" and even Runtime (though that's more related to Poser). Adding an extra library can be done by right clicking on one of these headers, and then selecting the "Add base directory" option. Point it to an (empty?) folder in which you plan to extract your content archives and you're done.

Once again: there really is no "right" or "wrong here", seriously. Even so, it's my experience that keeping some contents a little separated can help out in the longer run.

#6 => (re)organizing your morphs can be useful at times...

So... I have quite a few figures in my library and because of that also have quite a ton of different morphs, especially for figures such as G8F and G8M. Most of these morphs are located in pretty common locations that are easy to find again. But some morphs end up in the weirdest of locations where I'd like to point out "Hidden" as a somewhat unfair example (still an example ;)).

Fortunately for us we can do something about it ourselves. If you want to 'move' a Morph to a different location then all you need to do is click on the cogwheel icon (highlighted above on the right side), and then select: "Parameter Settings". This will open a new window (shown on the left) and from here on out it couldn't be easier: click on the "drop down" button behind the "Path" entry and just select a new location. Once you're done click "Accept" at the bottom and you're all set. Note that you can also use this method to define new location if you want to.

And don't worry: this is all virtual (meta)data so no actual files will get moved or something like that. So no worries about suddenly "breaking" any of these settings; though you should of course always be careful when making changes like these.

End of Part II

Well, at least we're now at 6 tips and tricks which is at least more than half way of 10, so now I don't have to feel guilty ;)

Thanks again for reading, thanks for your comments above and I'll be sure to check out the freebie forum!